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Posters of candidates from different political parties are seen in Erbil of Kurdistan, Iraq, on Sept. 11, 2018. Picture by Yasser Jawad/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images. All rights reserved. Every year, thousands of parents make a lot of sacrifice and spend
their lifetime fortunes so that their children can get into good
schools and universities. Thousands of high school graduates
passionately get admission in public and private universities. But
after four years of studying, many of them end up unemployed and
jobless. This reflects a misallocation of their incomes, time,
energy, and age. Meanwhile, the KRG Ministry of Higher Education and
Scientific Research and the Ministry of Education have failed
to tackle issues of overcrowded classrooms, outdated curriculums, and
favouritism.

In 2017 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, more than ten thousand
students dropped
out of school in the city of Sulaimani alone, mostly
due to economic problems. Out of that number seven thousand are male
and 3 thousand are female. Among those, high school students
constitute the lion’s share. According to information provided by
the Sulaimani Education Directorate, in 2017 and due to austerity
measures by the Kurdistan Regional Government, 1356 teachers quit and
asked for unpaid leave in order to find other work.

University students are also leaving
their universities and heading
mostly to Europe since programs do not correspond to the demands of
today in the fields of science and technology. UNIDO’s survey shows
that unemployment in the Kurdistan region stands at 24% for men and
69% for women, highlighting administrative, economic, and educational
dysfunctions and systematic problems in Kurdistan Regional
Government’s institutions.

In 2016 at the University of Halabja, a few teachers of the
university altered
final results of 74 students affecting the overall grades and
rankings of top and failed students. Some
officials of the university have forged
signatures of teachers in order to issue fake certificates.
An investigating committee was established look into these unlawful
acts. The committee announced the names of those responsible for
altering the documents. Not a single official or teacher has been
arrested after five months of the announcement confirming
corruption at a high level.

Since 2014 not a single school has been built
in the city of Sulaimani which has a population of 2 million. A
spokesperson of the Ministry of Education said
that they need to construct 250 to 300 hundred schools each year in
order to meet the schooling needs. The Ministry of Education started
constructing forty five schools in the city of Sulaimani for students
of elementary, basic and high schools in 2010 but 8 years later, not
a single building has been finished.
Moreover, 34 schools and 24 kindergarten buildings were supposed to
be constructed inside modern residential areas but none has been
built emphasizing a high level of ignorance of KRG officials when it
comes to the education process.

In the Kurdistan region, almost all the projects of construction are
either controlled by a certain political party or a small circle of
corrupt elite politicians or those who work for them. KRG consists of
21 ministries all of which are monopolized. Likewise, presidents of
universities, deans of colleges, and heads of departments and even
school managers in Hawler (Erbil) and Duhok provinces are either
employed by, or are members of KDP; and in Sulaimani and Halabja
provinces they are mostly hired by PUK. This phenomenon is a
continuation of the fifty-fifty division and mentality of the 1990s
civil war.

While KRG was supposed to be a broad-based government, all the
ministers are either PUK or KDP. The later shut down the parliament
in 2015 and sacked the Gorran Movement Ministers. KRG has not removed
or adjusted names of those ministers that KDP has fired in order to
mislead
international public opinion and representatives which in turn has
helped consolidate their grip on power. The Gorran Movement, however,
has proved to be a helpless representative of people’s votes due to
their silence and passivity.

With the growth of population in the Kurdistan region, the
disorganized and unmerciful role of free market in the region
dominated by slumlord politicians, and the hegemony of technological
advancement, responsibilities of universities, teachers, and students
have transformed. Universities are no longer a place to offer
certificates as they used to be in the 1990s.

Since 2008, graduates from humanities departments such as geography
and history are not employed by the KGR.
Whereas a common graduate has zero chance to get employed, relatives
of elite politicians just need their connections or “wasta” to
find a job. It has become a norm that sons and daughters of elite
politicians occupy high ministerial posts. They do not work as
teachers, for instance. Favouritism plays a major role in the
employment process. Similarly, graduates from departments like
Islamic Education, Sharia Law, history, geography, and Kurdish and
Arabic languages have almost zero chance to get a job both in the
private or public sectors. Successive KRG cabinets have failed to
address the issues of favouritism and wasta in the public sector and
oligarchy in the private one.

It has become a fruitless and deceitful trend recently that public
and private universities hold many of what they call “International
Scientific Conferences” yearly but almost none of these conferences
has been able to solve problems in KRG institutions. KRG and its
academia have, for instance, failed to solve the problems of water
shortage in the city of Darbandikhan while the city is
located on a dam. The researchers are ignored since they either write
low
quality and fraudulent research or do not respond to the
economic and social needs. Those that are considered in
touch with the local needs, since they are limited and few, don’t
have their outcomes implemented practically because they obviously
harm economic and political interests of high ranking officials.

Dilshad Omer, General Director of Sulaimani’s Directorate of
Education, has recently revealed that 76 people were arrested
for being responsible for the leaking of baccalaureate exam
questions. The KRG Ministry of Education, after almost three decades
of self-rule, has failed to conduct
honest baccalaureate exams. It is noticeable that many sons and
daughter of high ranking officials never attend Kurdish schools and
universities but usually study abroad. Many of them also receive
medical care in Europe or the US because they do not trust local
medical staff and doctors underlining their total lack of trust in
the home-grown
skills of the people of Kurdistan.

Currently, there are 6799 schools and 1000706 students in the
Kurdistan region. 25 percent of those are completely unserviceable
and should be demolished,
50 percent need renovation because they are unfit for use.
Austerity measures threaten the live of 126 teachers of the Kurdistan
region, according to information provided
by the Kurdistan Teachers’ Union. Annual standard
hours for teaching in the world are 900 hours, but in the Kurdistan
region it is 500 hours due to demonstrations
against salary delays and cuts, bureaucracy and national and
political holidays.

1733 schools are in Sulaimani but a big number of those schools have
two shifts and some even have three. In Sulaimani alone and apart
from internal obstacles, there are 35000 internally displaced
students and 5000 refugee students which require a clear educational
plan. Council members of Sulaimani province warn
about the possibility of not providing school supplies for those IDP
and refugee students because “the Iraqi government has decided that
those IDPs must return to their own cities and that they are no
longer ready to provide school supplies for those students.”

Despite logistical challenges after almost three decades of self-rule
since the establishment of the Kurdish parliament, teachers are still
underpaid or half-paid, favouritism is widespread, schools lack basic
services like up-to-date classrooms, clean water and modern toilets,
and the rankings
of the Kurdistan region universities are among the lowest in the
world. This systematic corruption is inherited
from the Baath regime and remains unsolved. This will not change
unless graduates, presidents of universities, and deans of colleges
stop selling certificates and give
up on offering doctorate degrees to elite politicians
to satisfy unresolved childhood wishes and prove their own
submissiveness.

The role of teachers and university lecturers should not only be
giving advice, conducting exams, and announcing the names of failed
or successful students. Students should hope to go beyond satisfying
their parents’ wishes by simply getting a degree. The attitudes of
both teachers and students need to change. Adapting to change does
not mean surrendering to it, it rather means being able to live with
it and add to it in order to have a better society and world.

Universities should guide graduates to find jobs and teachers should
build bridges between the market and the university. Students should
attempt not only to change their own lives but the lives of those
around them and fight against fraud and oil lords. A good teacher
cultivates as well as shapes the mentality and personality of their
students in order to eradicate injustice. A good student makes use of
the knowledge she has acquired. A good university directs societies
to embrace pluralism and diversity, organizes people to respect the
role of law and esteem their own individuality. A corrupt government
will not reform when people are silent.

The Kurdistan region of Iraq emerged from the ashes of Saddam
Hussein’s dictatorship, chemical bombardment and displacement,
Anfal campaigns, economic embargo, and ethnic cleansing into the
1990s civil war between KDP and PUK heading towards internal
corruption
and nepotism. A civil society, political pluralism,
social and economic justice is impossible without a modern productive
education system starting right from kindergarten. More students will
quit, more fake certificates will be issued, unemployment will
increase, and corruption will further paralyse both private and
public sectors unless there is a transparent
democratic system of governance based on the values of meritocracy
and not kleptocracy.

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